Interlocking brick



1.0. MARTIN, JR. INTERLOCKING BRICK.

-AFFLICATION FILED MARV29|1922.

1,431,318, Patented oct. 10,1922.

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IN TER/LOCKING BRICK.

Application med March 29,1322. serial No. 547,729.

T all whom t may concern.'

Be it known that I, JESSE C. MARTIN, Jr., a citizen of the .United States, residing at San Francisco, in the county of San Francisco and State of California, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Interlocking Brick, of which the following is a specification.

The invention relates to bricks, and has as an object the provision of a brick having elements on its surfaces adapted to interlock with complemental elements uponlike bricks upon which it is superimposed or which are superimposed upon it.

provision of an interlocking brick wherein the faces ef the bricks about the interlockin elements will come into close contact wit certainty and will not be held apartl by contact of the interlocking elements.

An illustrative embodiment of the invention is shown in the accompanying drawings, in which- Fig. 1 is a. plan view;

Fig.. 2 is a vertical longitudinal section on line 2 2 of Fig. 1 showingportions of superposed bricks in dotted lines.

The brick provided by the'present invention may be ofany desired size and shape, but preferably of the usual dimensions with length twice its width. A difliculty with v interlocking bricks .provided with bosses and receptacles heretofore used in laying a wall without a mortar joint, as in lire brick for l furnace settings, has been vthat the bosses were likely to come into contact. with the bottoms of the receptacles before the general faces vof the bricks about the interlocking elements came into'contact.

To obviate the named diiiculty the bricks embodying the present invention are made with bosses 10 extending above the general face 11 of the brick and to interlock with the bosses of other like bricks the opposite face of the brick is provided with receptacles 12 extending into the body of the brick from the general face 13 of this side of the brick. The depth of the receptacles 12 is, as shown, eater than the height of the bosses 10. uring the firing, especially with bricks fired at a high temperature, the clay of whlch the brick is formed shrinks. The shrinkage of the di'erent parts of a kiln is not equal. To make it possible to use a brick which was A further object of. the invention is the fired in the portion of the kiln where greatest shrinka e takes place, with a brick lired 1n the portion of the kiln where less shrinkage takes place, indiiferently in the wall, the d1fference between the height of the boss and the depth of the receptacle is made in excess of the maximum difference of shrinkage.

Moreover to ensure that the boss will not rlde on the walls of thecomplemental re ceptacle when the bricks are laid the horizontal dimensions of the boss are also made less than the horizontal dimensions' of the receptacle a sucient amount to allow for the difference in shrinkage with certainty.

When usedv without a mortar'joint, as is the practice in laying fire bricks in furnaces,

the bricks are commonly dipped in a mud of fire clay to provide a thin coating on the surface, which coating on the successive bricks may adhere. It lis important that the faces of the brick come into-close contact not only so that there shall be no cracks but also that the joint betweenthem which 1s the weakest portion of the wall and most susceptible to the action of the heat shall be as thin as possible. It is under these` conditions that the value of the present invention is greatest. v

To enable the bosses to enter the receptacles readily they are made as shown of tapering form, or in the form of the frustum of a cone, the receptacles having a corresponding form with the appearance above referred to. While the bosses and receptacles shown in the drawing for purposes of illustration are circular inplan, it will be understood that this showing is for purposes of illustration only, and that the form of the interlocking elements may be anything desired, so long as ,the depth of the receptacle is greater than the height of the boss with which it is tointerl'ock.

As illustrated the bosses and also the receptacles are spaced equi'distantly from the adjacent end of the brick from the side surfaces and from the center line 14 thereof.

Minor changes may be made in the physical embodiment of the invention withoutdeparting from its spirit.

I claim as my invention:

1. A brick having a boss upon one surface and a receptacle indented 'in its opposite surface, said boss and receptacle adapted to interlock with a receptacle and a boss upon contiguous bricks in a Wall, the height of the boss being less than the depth of receptacle whereby the surfaces of the bricks surrounding the interlocking boss and receptacle may be brought into close contact.

2. A brick comprising a body having a pluralit of bosses upon a surface thereof',

a plura ity of receptacles upon the opposite surface thereof, said receptacles being 0pposite said bosses and adapted to interlock with complemental receptacles and bosses upon contiguous bricks in a Wall, the depth of the receptacles being greater than -i theV height of the bosses. c

3. A brick having bosses upon a surfac thereof andreceptacles indented upon the opposite surface thereof, the bosses and re ceptacles being coaxial and each being spaced equally from an. end, the sides and the center line of the brick, the depth of the receptacles being greaterthan the height of the bosses.

JESSE c. MARriN, Je 

